Srikanth storms into Indonesian Masters final

World No. 9 Srikanth, who had beaten Malaysia’s Teck Zhi Soo in the quarter-final yesterday, produced another brilliant performance against local hero Anthony Ginting. The opening point of the match went in favour of the Indian after both players played a fantastic rally. Capitalizing on his good start, Srikanth quickly notched up a 7-2 lead against his lower ranked opponent. Ginting gathered the next four points and kept up to finally close the gap to just one point at 14-13. Srikanth, however, showed his prowess with seven back-to-back points to take the first game 21-13.

In the second game, the Indonesian started the better by racing to a 7-2 lead. But, Srikanth quickly closed the gap on Ginting by winning six of the next seven points to take the game to 8-8. As in the first game, the top seed went into the break with an 11-8 lead.

The Indian was in ominous form after the break as he won five consecutive points to take the lead to 16-8. With the Indian dominating the game by amazing deception and clinical net play, the support for Ginting slowly died down. However, the local hero clawed his way into the match to close the gap on the Indian. With the second game at 19-17 in favour of the Indian, Srikanth won the crucial point to set up three match points.

However, the net play that helped Srikanth earlier came back to bite him as he lost two consecutive points. Frustrated with his play, Srikanth went into a smashing game for the next point, and broke Ginting's defence in the third attempt to win the second game 21-19.

Kidambi Srikanth will now take on the winner of the match between Tommy Sugiarto and Wisnu Yuli Prasetyo in the final on Sunday.